Martha Bennett Stiles

Martha Bennett Stiles lives in Lexington, KY, near the farm where for 30 years she & her late husband, JACS Editor, Martin Stiles, bred thoroughbred racehorses (including one champion!). Martha grew up around a bend in the river from Jamestown, where her 1st VA grandsire arrived as a cabin boy in 1608. Her "One Among the Indians" (1962, 2006) is the story of his 2 years as hostage to Pocahontas's father.

"Sailing to Freedom"(2012), Kentucky's choice for the 2012 National Book Fest,is Martha's 2nd Underground Railroad novel. Aboard the schooner Newburyport Beauty, 12 y.o. cook's helper, Ray, and his monkey, Allie, hope to win forgiveness for Allie's many crimes by foiling bounty hunters who come seeking a runaway slave. Meanwhile the hideway's 11 y.o. brother, Ogun, is attempting the same dangerous journey--South Carolina to Canada--on foot.

Martha worked a year as a telephone operator in Smithfield, VA, to jump-start financing college. She biked to work, up and down some unpaved clay roads. One morning she coasted down a hill so quietly that a great blue heron took such LOUD offense at her appearance,she nearly fell off her bike. He shows up in 2 of her picture books--"Dougal Looks for Birds" & "Island Magic," &, quietly, in the YA "The Star in the Forest."

Martha began college at Wiliam & Mary, finished at the University of Michigan, then worked as an analytical chemist for Dupont in Richmond, VA, until her marriage.

Martha's 60-odd short works have appeared in such wide-ranging periodicals as "Humpty Dumpty's Magazine," "Seventeen," "Georgia Review," "Horsemen's Journal" & "Esquire," etc. Her adult fiction includes the novel "Lonesome Road," and the chapbook "Landscapes" (with Bobbie Ann Mason).

Martha's 3rd novel was the story of a Catholic German boy during WWII, titled "Darkness Over the Land," an ALA Notable & Horn Book Fanfare title. Martha began the research for this YA during the year her husband's Guggenheim Fellowship permitted them both to live in Munich.

Martha's next young adult novel was "The Star in the Forest," a story of war & witchcraft in France in the Dark Ages.

She followed with the middle grade readers "Tana and the Useless Monkey" (Castro Cuba)& "Sarah the Dragon Lady" (a New York fashion designer's daughter spends a school-year in Kentucky when her parents' marriage falters). "Sarah the Dragon Lady" was a Kentucky Bluegrass Award nominee & a Troll Bookclub selection.

Next came the young adult title "Kate of Still Waters," an exploration of a farm girl's situation as drought worsens the Farm Crisis. "Kate of Still Waters" won a Society of Children's Book Writers/Judy Blume contemporary novel award.

Martha's picture books are "Dougal Looks for Birds"; "James the Vine Puller" (an amusing Afro-Brazilian folktale about conflict resolution); & Daniel San Souci-illustrated "Island Magic," an ABA pick-of-the-list & Kentucky Bluegrass & Great Lakes Book Award nominee & winner of the Detroit Women Writers Millennium Reading Contest, children's division).

Martha has taught writing at the Universities of Louisville & Kentucky, & in schools, adult education classes, & workshops. Martha hopes you will visit her website, www.marthabennettstiles.com & will write to her at mbsparis@msn.com or 3051 Rio Dosa Drive#303, Lexington, KY 40509 For an answer via snail mail, please enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope.